Protect Funding for Libraries – Sign The Petition

Posted on February 6, 2010 by markorton

State Cuts Continue to Library Budget

Here in Hudson, we just successfully passed a voter referendum to increase the City of Hudson’s support for our library for the first time in a decade. By a better than 60% margin voters here affirmed the importance of the library in our daily life.

Now we are faced with cuts at the state level that will make it more difficult to sustain the library here and across the state.

From the New York Library Association:

This will be the fifth cut in less than two years and will bring Library Aid down from $102 million in 2007 to $84.5 million in 2010. These cuts combined total an $18 million or 18% reduction in funding for library services. Libraries are part of our safety net—they are essential to life long learning, jobs and opportunity, quality of life and community empowerment.

Sign the Online Petition to Support Public Libraries

There is an online petition you can sign to support funding for public libraries in the upcoming state budget:

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Cambridge Public Library Opens New Main Library

Posted on December 12, 2009 by markorton

I somehow suspected that the new library would not be finished before I moved away from Cambridge. It took perhaps ten years to complete this project. First, there was an interminable years of decision making about where to locate the building. Some, including me, favored a Central Square location. But, in the end, a site adjacent to the old main library was selected. Then, another interminable design phase came. Finally construction began. The library now had opened. According to Robert Campbell, in his Boston Globe review of the building, it took 15 years and $10 million of state funds and $81 million of city money to build it. The library has a floor plan and other information about the building on its website.

Time will tell about how well this building functions as a library and public building. Part of this result will depend on the library staff being inventive and welcoming to public events in the lecture hall in the second basement and the other open spaces in the building. The new building does not have the encompassing warmth of the old building with its dark woods and somewhat less vast spaces.

If you are interested in the “green:” aspect of the building go here for a review of those features (a PDF file).

I went to for a visit.

View from Broadway of old and new library

1st floor looking back to entrance and stairs up on right (red)

from stairway to 2nd floor towards entrance and circulation

study area in stacks on 2nd floor

Teen Room in old library building

kids area in 3rd floor Children's Division

Computer area in old building

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Support the Hudson Area Library on Election Day – Vote Yes on Library Budget Question

Posted on November 2, 2009 by markorton

Library Budget Question on the Ballot

Tomorrow, Nov. 3rd, is Election Day here and around the state. On the ballot in Hudson and Greenport is a proposition to increase support to the Hudson Area Library. I have been working on this initiative and pass along the following reasons to go to the polls and say, “Yes” at the Library Budget line.

Hudson provides $48,000 per year to support the library and this has been unchanged for a decade. Greenport provides support of $5,500. This tiny tax support puts our local library at the bottom of the pile in the Mid-Hudson Libraries consortium. Purchases of new books and maintenance of even minimal services are barely possible. Keeping a professional librarian on staff is barely possible. The library has been running a deficit for years and is about to exhaust its endowment. So, voting yes tomorrow will save the library and put it on a footing where we can begin to think about creating a level of services that will meet expanding demands for access to books, magazines, Internet, childrens’ reading needs, and more.

A Yes vote will increase public tax-based support for the library from $53,500 per year to #136,500 at the cost of roughly $2.50 per person per month.

Libraries are an important element in a knowledge based world. Hudson needs to meet the challenge of providing everyine with access to the knowledge of the world.